Michelle Higgs's guide to the weird and wonderful world of Victorian England

Thursday, 23 April 2015

REVIEW OF 'LIFE IN THE VICTORIAN ASYLUM' BY MARK STEVENS

My Victorian England blog has been shamefully neglected of late because most of my time has been taken up with my forthcoming book, 'Servants' Stories'. Now that I have a bit more breathing space, I can start to blog again.

Let's start with a review of Mark Stevens' thoroughly absorbing book 'Life in the Victorian Asylum'. This is very late as the book was published in October last year, but better late than never! Regular readers of this blog will know that this is a subject I'm fascinated with.

'Life in the Victorian Asylum' is the companion to Mark's highly successful first book, 'Broadmoor Revealed' which dealt with the treatment of the criminally insane and focused on some of the most interesting case histories. This new book is more general and as the title suggests, it describes daily life for the asylum patient.

The book is separated into two distinct parts. The first part is written in the style of a handbook for Victorian asylum patients and the reader is addressed as if he or she was a new inmate. Walking them through step by step, the information includes what they could expect during the admission process and how a diagnosis was made; what the accommodation and the daily routine was like; the treatment for mental illness and general healthcare; and how patients were discharged after recovery.

If you have an ancestor who was admitted to an asylum, this section of the book will give you a detailed overview of daily life for him or her inside the institution. The sad thing about the handbook is that, in reality, even if the process had been fully explained to asylum patients, their fragile mental state would probably have meant they would not have understood it.

The second part of the book is written as a straight history of Victorian asylums with special reference to Moulsford Asylum (Fair Mile Hospital) in Berkshire, which was the inspiration for the book. Mark Stevens is an archivist at Berkshire Record Office where he looks after the archives of both Fair Mile Hospital and Broadmoor so there are plenty of fascinating examples and case histories from the archives throughout the book.

The book provides a tantalising snapshot of a world behind the locked doors of the
asylum and shatters a few myths about the purpose of such institutions
and the treatment for patients within them. So often portrayed as dark, forbidding places from which there was no escape, Mark Stevens offers a different point of view about lunatic asylums. What really comes across is that the staff of Victorian asylums were extremely compassionate in the way they treated their patients with the aim of achieving recovery for as many as possible.